There are some truths so hard to face, so ugly and so at odds with how we imagine the world should be, that nobody can accept them. Here’s one: It is obvious that a class system has arrived in America — a recent study of the thirty-four countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that only Italy and Great Britain have less social mobility. But nobody wants to admit: If your daddy was rich, you’re gonna stay rich, and if your daddy was poor, you’re gonna stay poor.Every instinct in the American gut, every institution, every national symbol, runs on the idea that anybody can make it; the only limits are your own limits. Which is an amazing idea, a gift to the world — just no longer true. Culturally, and in their daily lives, Americans continue to glide through a ghostly land of opportunity they can’t bear to tell themselves isn’t real. It’s the most dangerous lie the country tells itself.

It’s a mystery why our righty friends don’t see our ad hoc, Rube Goldberg, chewing gum and baling wire, health care system that transfers costs of care for the poor and uninsured to paying patients as “socialism” and “redistribution,” because that’s exactly what it is. Very strange that they want to keep this system.

Here’s an answer for you. You know why the schools keep trying to teach our kids the metric system? Socialism. They’re trying to turn our kids into effete socialists, just like everyone over in europe. Well, this is America and in America we measure things using American, not metric. It’s time you liburals got used to that and got with the program.

Well, this isn’t England yet, which is just a little too close to those Failure Monkey’s in France for my liking, but you liburls keep it up and we might turn into England. Everybody will have socialism in their doctors office and bad teeth. Why you want people to have teeth like the Brits is beyond me.

I think we had the right idea back in ’43. They didn’t go backpacking though europe and hang out in left bank cafe’s. They went over there and bombed the shit out of the place!

No doubt we will hear a chorus of braying from the Cheap Labor Conservatives about Washington having the nation’s highest minimum wage. (Never mind the fact the cost of living is higher here than in most places, too.) “It’s an outrage!” they’ll scream, that nursing home aides, daycare workers, and fast food workers have to be paid $9.04 an hour. “It’s ridiculous that these people make $18,000 a year!” they’ll cry, as they buff specks of dust off their shiny new Lexuses, Audis, and BMWs. Yes, indeed, in the name of freedom and economic efficiency, employers should be allowed to pay whatever the market will bear.

The funny thing is, if we got rid of all those “welfare” programs these same people decry with equal vigor, that would mean the end of the government subsidies that support keep labor costs low for these businesses; and $9.04 an hour would look pretty good to these employers if they had to pay what it actually costs to get the work done.

After all, government aid to the working poor pays about half the cost of providing these workers to the economy.

@12 You forgot Peugeots, there’s a failure monkey car for you. Typical libural believing that socialist cars from europe are the good ones and capitalist American made cars are no good. Why are you liburals always saying America’s no good?

A: I believe the rich should pay more, but that’s not a good platform for tax policy. What has gone wrong is that we’ve failed to recognize the difference between earned income and unearned income. Is it really fair for gamblers on Wall Street to pay a 15% rate when they make a winning investment, and an honest working person — a bricklayer for example — may pay an equal or higher tax on their wages than a gambler? That’s absolute absurdity…

Q: What’s your take on the Occupy movement?

A: I’m happy to say that my current income puts me in the 99% group. So maybe I’m not so happy, I don’t know.

This movement has brought to the surface some very serious problems in our country about disparities in opportunity and income. So many young people are having a terrible time getting a job.

Young people have great idealism, and the Occupy movement has been a bit unrealistic at times. So what? I can’t imagine a worse America if our younger generation didn’t have great idealism. I salute them for their enthusiasm, and their mission.

A couple days ago, a dumbass troll criticized President Obama going to Hawaii while the payroll tax/unemployment benefits extension was still in limbo.

Problem is, when he posted his comment, the President was still in Washington waiting for Congress to pass the payroll tax/unemployment benefits extension so he could sign it.

Talk about a dumbass! Don’t these crackheads ever fact-check anything?

Well, the President is in Hawaii now, so criticize away …

“Obama made two trips on Christmas to nearby Marine Corps Base Hawaii, first to attend church services at the base chapel … [and later] returned to the base to visit with several hundred service members and their families ….

“The Obamas posed for photos, signed autographs and stopped to chat with the military families gathered in the dining hall ….

“Many of the service members stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii have deployed to Afghanistan, as well as Iraq, where the last American troops were withdrawn earlier this month.”

Meanwhile …

“Back in the Washington area, Vice President Joe Biden and wife Jill Biden spent Christmas visiting wounded service members and their families at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.”

The payroll tax/unemployment bill got hung up in Congress because Republicans decorated it like a Christmas Tree with all sorts of shit they knew Democrats wouldn’t agree to. In other words, they disrupted the President’s troop visit in the Pacific Theater to play politics.

Take a good long look at this mugshot: This is what the Badger State’s GOP intelligentsia looks like. Oh well, at least Wisconsin has a great NFL team, even if their Republicans are as rancid as cheese left out in the sun since six ways to Sunday.

CNN Leonard H. “Kip” Carter, a former close Gingrich friend, stated that it was Newt Gingrich who wanted the divorce.

Gingrich commented about his first wife:

‘You know and I know that she’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of a president,'”

Carter,told CNN this conversation took place with Gingrich the day Gingrich revealed he was filing for divorce.

Carter served as treasurer of Gingrich’s first congressional campaigns.

Fact and Truth: Newt Gingrich, is both too old, he will be 70 next year, too immoral, too many times married, and according to his own shallow standards not young looking, tall, physically fit, handsome or as presidential looking as Mitt Romney :)

Newt The Grinch makes both Romney and Obama look more presidential alllll the time.

Face the facts and honesty Gingrich looks like the fat old man that he really is and having a younger, prettier woman does not make him look any more presidential or younger :)

Asked if he were willing to pay more taxes in a Nov. 30 interview with Bloomberg Television, Blackstone Group LP CEO Stephen Schwarzman spoke about lower-income U.S. families who pay no income tax.

“You have to have skin in the game,” said Schwarzman, 64. “I’m not saying how much people should do. But we should all be part of the system.”…

Essentially, Jamie Dimon handed Birmingham, Alabama a Chase credit card and then bribed its local officials to run up a gigantic balance, leaving future residents and those residents’ children with the bill. As a result, the citizens of Jefferson County will now be making payments to Chase until the end of time.

Do you think Jamie Dimon would have done that deal if he lived in Jefferson County? Put it this way: if he was trying to support two kids on $30,000 a year, and lived in a Birmingham neighborhood full of people in the same boat, would he sign off on a deal that jacked up everyone’s sewer bills 400% for the next thirty years?

Doubtful. But then again, people like Jamie Dimon aren’t really citizens of any country. They live in their own gated archipelago, and the rest of the world is a dumping ground.

It is easier to climb the social ladder and earn more than one’s parents in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada than in France, Italy, Britain and the United States, according to a new OECD study. Intergenerational Social Mobility: a family affair? says weak social mobility can signal a lack of equal opportunities, constrain productivity and curb economic growth.

The exception, of course, is Sen. Roy Blunt, an early and active backer of ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The Springfield Republican and freshman senator announced in September that he was not only endorsing Romney but would also spearhead the candidate’s effort to round up additional congressional support.

“Mitt has the right background to help create more economic certainty and spur job growth in Missouri and nationwide, and that’s why I’m proud to lead his congressional team,” Blunt said at the time.http://www.news-leader.com/art.....dyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

I’m not sure how having a member of the far right, who’s mostly known for being a crook, is supposed to help your chances of becoming president.

It would seem to me that what Politifact doesn’t do is interpret the impact of legislation over time, because doing so relies on not just facts, but they’re interpretation, and the interpretation of facts is a subjective thing.

Since it’s the impact that legislation over time that’s really the crucial thing, I tend not to spend a lot of time with sites like Politifact.

It would seem to me that what Politifact doesn’t do is interpret the impact of legislation over time, because doing so relies on not just facts, but they’re interpretation, and the interpretation of facts is a subjective thing.

If we want to talk winners and losers, my boy “run to the left of the pack” Johnny Huntsman is polling ahead of the The New Apostolic’s (Bachmann Santorum Perry) in New Hampshire. The Christian right is out of the fight for the GOP’s presidential nomination!

Spuddy, you are a liar. Flat out. Why do you persist in coming in here to post your infantile blather? You’re so fulla shit your ears are green. Of course, being a perfect representative example of the teabaggers, I suppose it is necessary for you to do that, we need the reminder of what a real danger you idiots are to modern civilization.

Its the same sort of mindset that caused people to be so terrified of cats, them being minions or familiars of Satan or Beelzebub or whatever you call it, that caused them to practically exterminate the species throughout Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. So when the Rat population exploded as a direct result of that, they were able to spread the Black Plague far and wide nearly unchecked for 30 years.

Are you willing to be the type of person that would have their lives ruled by superstition and ignorance? Are you going to be the next version of the Spanish Inquisition? Because, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Not even the primitive, uncivilized, pre-scientific minds that you all seem to share. No matter how badly you want it to be.

It is becoming increasingly obvious, that the sort of thinking processes that the teabagger lunatics demonstrate for everyone to see, would be a direct threat to having to do something important, like saving forests or arable land for future use. You would pave over the last farm to build a McDonalds. You would cut the last tree to wipe your ass on. You would stand directly in front of that giant rocket that would carry the machines to deflect that asteroid away from impacting the Earth. You are Luddites. Primitives. You are no more intelligent or capable of making decisions than the most isolated Pashtun tribesman.

Go back to your mud hut, your cave or your little nest of leaves in a tree. Go back to herding goats or gathering grasshoppers to eat. Your phony little astroturf teaparty is on the wrong side of history.

So, is it this that the “christians” use to rationalize their total contempt for the working man?

and he still hasn’t provided any FACTS to back it up.

Butt this is very telling…

Go back to your mud hut, your cave or your little nest of leaves in a tree.

Hmmm… Since I know I live much better than you, you are projecting again. A Psych 101 thing!

Did you bake your mud before building your hovel? Did Roger DOPEY Rabbit rent you his old cave? Nest of leaves? Surely you live better than that!

You would pave over the last farm to build a McDonalds. How is that burger flipping job doing?

You would cut the last tree to wipe your ass on. At least I wipe my ASS! How are those racetracks in your pink lace panties these days?

You would stand directly in front of that giant rocket that would carry the machines to deflect that asteroid away from impacting the Earth. This is too stoopid to even comment on. Seems to Puddy, when you open mouth, it is only to change your smelly feet.

What a bunch of useless commentary. The rest of the crybaby’s rant is useless as ever.

Why don’t we just get the hell out of South Korea and let the nieghborhood of China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea settle matters in the area? If you’ve ever noticed, South Korea is a modern, wealthy country capable of defending itself. We don’t need to be there, and our leaving will ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

In a Hawaii Reporter story published last week, the total cost (based on what is known) for a 17-day round trip vacation to Hawaii for the President and his family and staff and security is an estimated $4,113,038.

That includes $3,629,622 for separate travel for the president and his family, $151,200 for housing for security, $72,216 for staff to stay in one of Hawaii’s most luxurious resorts, the Moana Surfrider in Waikiki, and local police protection and ambulance detail for $260,000.

Yeah, it’s expensive flying a 747 from the East Coast to Hawaii, just like it’s expensive getting involved in 2 wars in the Middle East using a credit card to pay for it all.

The real costs of the Afghan and Iraqi mis-adventures haven’t even been totalled-up yet. The current $15 trillion-plus national debt is going to look small when we finally top out and can’t borrow any more to fund the empire.

If we go with Obama’s plan, we’ll have a pretty good first-aid system, good primary care and some trauma capability. I’m not too sure how the rest will work out. Will the government simply take over the health care system and automatically be the employer and supervision for all health care workers? I can’t see the system working unless the government takes it over and determines what treatments or services are provided without reference to anyone’s ability or inclination to pay for their own care. Does it mean that I can’t get some optional surgery done if I choose to? There are a lot of uncertainties about the future of health care in the US.

In a Hawaii Reporter story published last week, the total cost (based on what is known) for a 17-day round trip vacation to Hawaii for the President and his family and staff and security is an estimated $4,113,038.

That includes $3,629,622 for separate travel for the president and his family, $151,200 for housing for security, $72,216 for staff to stay in one of Hawaii’s most luxurious resorts, the Moana Surfrider in Waikiki, and local police protection and ambulance detail for $260,000.

Oh, the screaming and crying and gnashing of teeth at the price tag for the Obama’s approximately $4.1 million Hawaii vacation. You really gotta hand it to The Huffington Post, and its founder, politically schizophrenic Arianna Huffington who hasn’t quite figured out what she wants to be when she grows up.

Today’s HuffPo headline screams, “Obama Hawaii Vacation Costs Tax Payers $4 Million; A Look At The President’s Past Hawaii Vacations,” and my, the reading public is supposed to feel instant outrage at this huge waste of taxpayer money ($2.5 million more than last year) so that our President can take a (much-deserved) vacation.

But peruse the article a little further . . . yes, it could be that the trip is costing over $4 million, with Secret Service detail, advance planning, staff, the White House press corps, and all of the perks of being President of the United States (and practically the whole frigging planet). But at least part of the reason for the higher tab than last year should be borne by the goofier-than-batship House GOP’ers. Despite the fact that First Lady Michelle Obama and his two daughters landed in Hawaii last Friday, the President is forced to remain in D.C. – “for as long as it takes,” he said – until John Boehner and his happy henchmen, consisting of the teabagging House GOP’ers, approve the payroll tax cuts and extend unemployment benefits. President Obama is, you see, committed to making sure that average Americans don’t spend the holidays mired in gloom of what is to come – or not to come.

And, as a side note, all who are waiting for the President and Harry Reid to blink on this one should probably not hold their breaths.

Perhaps the critics of this vacation believe the Obamas and their daughters should fly commercial, wander off the plane in Hawaii and hail a cab to their vacation spot – and that they aren’t deserving of the exacting plans and security required when the First Family travels. What HuffPo didn’t put in neon lights in the headline is that the Obamas “have rented and paid for their own accommodations in the form of a beach front rental on Kailua,” while the First Family’s staff and White House press corps bunk at the Moana Surfrider, a Westin hotel with rates starting at $250. Sheesh, visitors to Chicago pay more than that for a room at the Holiday Inn.

Who is talking about days on vacation rujax? I am discussing vacation costs. All the trips Bush took to his Texas ranch on vacation over 8 years was $20 Million per some leftist pinhead web sites. One ObamAA+ vacation was one-fifth of that. So get your FACTS down moron!

So let’s go there. President Bush played just 24 rounds of golf in eight years in the whitey house. ObamAA+ played his 90th round yesterday!

BTW nice copy of more than 2 paragraphs fool! I hope Darryl whacks the whole thing otherwise Darryl will give you more latitude than Roger DOPEY Rabbit and that would be interesting.

@66 The government has paid for over half of all health care costs in the U.S. for quite a few years now, and I still don’t see government bureaucrats dictating to doctors or hospitals what treatment patients can receive. I do, however, see private health insurers telling sick patients they can’t have any treatment at all.

It’s recess appointment time! Republicans predictably are crying foul. I say let’s remind them of how baseball — the All-American (except for Japanese leagues) game — is played.

If your pitcher hits one of our guys, our pitcher is gonna hit one of your guys.

Or, we can relabel it and all it Mafia Rules: You whack one of our guys, we’ll whack one of your guys. Or Hockey Rules …

I say let’s all call, write, and email the White House to remind President Jellyfish it’s time to make all those recess appointments of people high on the GOP Hate List, for payback if for no other reason.

She spends $250 a week on her hair. How much does Mrs ylb make with her modest income? I bet it’s 1/4 of her take home salary Pelosi blows on her hair. Yet she’s a OWS heroine. The OWS crowd are only upset at Republican 1%ers. That’s why she and Jon Corzine skate at these OWS events.

Another DOPEY response. You and other HA participants claim US health care sucks. Yet world peeps run to America for health care. So it must not suck after all since they have all those socialist countries and their wonderful health care systems. More DOPEY commentary from the DOPEY Rabbit!

The government has paid for over half of all health care costs in the U.S. for quite a few years now, and I still don’t see government bureaucrats dictating to doctors or hospitals what treatment patients can receive.

What? You forgot last year, ObamAA+ nominated Donald Berwick as his dubious recess appointment to head Medicare and Medicaid. He is all for health care rationing. Now ObamAA+ nominated Henry J. Aaron to head the Social Security Advisory Board and he has very similar views for health care rationing as Berwick does.

And DOPEY Rabbit, have you read about the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)? That’s scary shit dude! Butt I know with you being the DOPEY Rabbit, it wasn’t on MSNBC!

2011 was a good year for protest and a bad year for government. 2012 will be a good year for both if our political leaders can figure out the connection.

Across the globe, this was a year when people took to the streets, often overthrowing their leaders in the process. That was true in the Arab world, in Russia, in India, in Western Europe, in the United States and even in China.

And everywhere, this year of mass defiance wrong-footed those who were supposed to be in the know.

Oh my the crazed databaze fool appears again. Still living vicariously on others commentary. Wow ylb, you came back and still have no life. I own your sorry ASS and believe me it’s sorry! You remind of someone who has delusions of adequacy.

And… you are still looking for that adequacy! EPIC FAYLE!

Still lyao? You know ylb, you set such low personal standards and then you consistently fail to achieve them. How are those delusions of adequacy?

@60 Not to long ago there were marches and protests in S. Korea calling for the US to get out. They don’t want us there, they don’t need us there, we should leave.

We also have a air force base in the middle of Greenlandhttp://www.peterson.af.mil/uni...../index.asp that we probably don’t need and where the locals don’t want us. Unfortunately for the locals, their governed by the Dutch and the Dutch don’t give a shit what the locals think.

Not sure if they still own them or not, but the army used to own a couple ski hills, just for army folks. One of them was in Germany. ‘Cause it’s so hard to find a ski hill in Germany…

I’m not an isolationist, I don’t think we should fold up everything and block out the rest of the world, but there’s a lot of stuff that we could close down.

I don’t know where in the world that $3+ million “travel” expense is coming from. Maybe it’s taking the Presidential family, the White House Staff, and the entire press corps and extrapolating the commercial cost of their seats from D.C. to Hawaii, and multiplying by two (since the President had to stay in D.C. due to the House Republicans being both idiots and jerks at the same time).

Maybe it’s figuring in the cost of a charter of a 747, multiplying by two, and adding in the cost of the other Air Force jet that flies the same route to carry the Presidential motorcade.

But it’s assuredly NOT out-of-pocket costs. We already own the airplanes, if not used they would sit on the tarmac or be used in training flights so the pilots can keep their hours up. And the Air Force crew gets paid regardless (at least this way they get a trip to Hawaii, instead of being stuck at Andrews AFB on stand-by duty).

The actual out-of-pocket cost is for on-board food and fuel – and I can assure you that even though Air Force One is not the newest, most efficient model of 747 available, it does NOT use over a million and a half dollars of fuel to go from D.C. to Hawaii and back.

Okay, a little back-of-the envelope calculations:

Surprisingly, the milage between Washington D.C. and Honolulu listed on websites ranges by as much as a 1,000 miles. I took the middle figure of $4,519 miles.

Next, we have to calculate fuel consumption. This can vary a lot by the model (even within the basic 747-400 configuration), and depending upon the payload weight and wind direction and speed. I’m assuming it’s carrying near the maximum payload for simplicity sake (I doubt it is anywhere near to that in reality), and that the pilot is avoiding the jetstream, and therefore using 5 gallons per mile as an average consumption rate.

So at this point a one-way trip consumes 22,595 gallons of fuel.

Then we have to figure the cost of jet fuel, which can vary between $4.00 to $8.00 per gallon. I’m assuming the jet fuel was purchased under a goverment-bidded contract, with an average of $5.00 per gallon.

This means that the cost of a one-way trip in jet fuel is about $451,900. Multiply by three (due to the President having to stay in D.C. longer than his family), and you have a fuel consumption cost of $451,900.

Which is considerably less than the 3+ million the article reports for transportation expenses. Sure, there is some ground transportation expense, but that hardly makes up the difference.

I care. If you are involved in Seventh Day Adventism or any other cult, let me assure you that your friends and relatives do care. When one considers how God’s Word is being perverted and maligned, the shortest verse in the Bible comes to mind, “Jesus wept”. (John 11:35) There is no doubt that God cares.

We have recently witnessed a false prophet at work. Jim Jones completely changed the life of a large group of people, convinced them to leave their native United States and retreat to the jungle wilderness of Guyana. The world was shocked at the mass suicide and murders which followed. How in God’s name could such an atrocity occur we all asked?

I see the same thing happening in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Perhaps no one has blatantly committed suicide or homicide but lifestyles have been changed drastically; a wall of prejudice and intolerance is erected against other Christians. The average member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church thrives on self righteousness and hypocrisy.

@95 Bah, most of my relatives are 7th day, they’re nice, hardworking, folks just like everyone else. There’s nothing cultish about them or the churches they attend. Anyone, anywhere, can take things a little too far and go a bit off the deep end, and yeah, there’s probably a few 7th day folks that do. Those folks are statistical outliers and and don’t reflect the values or ways of the rest of the group anymore than the ELF reflects the views of the Sierra Club.

Beats the fuck out of me. Does it really matter? I was making the point that what statistical outliers do doesn’t reflect on what the mainline of any group does. The ELF being a statistical outlier in the environmental community.

@98 Nope, the law wasn’t written that way. With minimum wage as high as it is now, we should probably do an update so that the wage only goes up when prices go up. We could also look what England does and have a lower “training wage” for people under the age of 18.

You might be wondering what’s going to happen to the Republican Evangelicals in the 2012 election. It looks like they are being faced with the prospect of supporting either a serial adulter or a mormon. Would they sit this one out?

Not likely – the Republicans already have their strategy for keeping them in line well in place. I spent Christmas weekend with a number of my Evangelical friends, and was assured by quite a number of them that the “secret” about President Obama’s nefarious plans for America were about to be exposed. I couldn’t figure out what the heck they were talking about. It’s the “whisper campaign” in effect – the type which Karl Rove excels at.

You might remember that Karl Rove targeted a justice on the Alabama Surpreme Court in the 1980’s. He was an upstanding and widely respected justice, fair and smart. So, of course, Rove had to destroy him. He planted articles in Readers Digest naming him one of the “worst judges in America”. But more importantly, he used Republican students at the Univ. of Alabama Law School to start a whisper campaign that he was using his children’s charity to troll for abuse victims, but that everyone was afraid to call him out because of his powerful position. These students went home to their friends and families and spread the libelous rumors, which spread in geometric progression within weeks. Not knowing the source, the justice was in a poor position to respond without giving credence to the rumors by acknowledging them.

So that’s pretty much what is happening how, against the President. The whisper campaign is that President Obama is a secret muslim who plans shortly to shred the U.S. Constitution and replace it with Sharia law. Here’s a take on it, from Victoria Jackson who’s swallowed it hook, line, and sinker:

For those of us who are old enough, this whole “secret conspiricy” thing isn’t really new, it’s just the subject has changed. It used to be John Birch society warning us that there is a communist conspiracy in the highest branches of government which is posed to take over the government completely as soon as it receives it’s signal from Moscow.

# 103: We tried that, back in the 70’s. The problem was the adult unemployment rate started rising as businesses tried to cut corners by hiring teenagers instead, then laying them off as soon as they turned 18. A friend of mine worked at McDonalds and for two years, was an assistant manager, and suddenly found he couldn’t work the summer between high school and college for that reason. At least the manager didn’t give him any B.S., he told him exactly what he was doing.

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